Breathless On Mount Kenya

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Breathless On Mount Kenya

It's the second highest point on the African Continent, is easily accessible from Nairobi and, with Point Lenana, at 4,890m, described as "trekable", it's no wonder there is a constant stream of tourists and backpackers rolling into Nanyuki looking for a quick and easy taste of the high mountains and falling into the hands of often poorly experienced "guides".

But let's get this in perspective. Would you consider trying to climb up to Everest Base Camp in just three days ? No - it would take a couple of weeks at least. So, why should it be possible to climb almost as high up Mount Kenya (and higher in the case of Kilimanjaro) in just three days? As soon as you go above 3,000m you need to be really careful about altitude sickness, especially when the climb you are undertaking is technically challenging, exposed and potentially very dangerous. "Once above 3,000m, don't sleep more than 300m higher each night" is the professional advice - impossible and impractical for a three or four day climb from 2,300 up to 4,890m

A Belgian tourist died on the route we took just 24 hours before we made the final push for the summit. We saw her body being brought through our base camp and we saw the the slide marks in the snow with our head torches as we climbed in the dark at 5am the next morning. Perhaps this has made me over reflective but it has also reinforced what I already knew - that mountains, especially those like Mount Kenya and Kili which are often portrayed as just another tourist destination, must be treated with HUGE respect. You should be properly equiped and must make yourself aware of all of the risks - DO NOT rely on someone approaching you at a bus station to offer you the best advice.

We are now back in Nanyuki, exhausted. Here is our experience of climbing Mount Kenya:

18th / 19th Jan - Planning

Fortunately we have a friend in Nanyuki - Dipi is the cousin of an old work colleague of mine and has lived here all his life. He has climbed the mountain a few times and knows how to spot an inexperienced tout. His advice was "go to Naromoro River Lodge and talk to the guides there, they really known what they are doing". We could have spent hours discussing with the swarm of potential guides who greeted us as we arrived in Nanyuki but went straight to those we knew we could trust. By Thursday evening we had booked equipment (lightweight tent, extreme weather sleeping bag, stove, walking poles etc) and had also arranged a professional guide with over 20 years experience of climbing the mountain. We decided to carry our own gear and do all of our own cooking (a fantastic diet of pasta, soup, Weetabix and dried fruit and nuts) but certainly did not want to risk climbing without a guide.

On Friday we met our guide, Simon, collected all of the gear, shopped till we dropped for provisions (including my now much treasured "Spiderman" water bottle), sent reassuring emails to family along with others about to start climbing and sat and looked at the towering peaks of the mountain silhouetted against the Nanyuki sky. Throats dry in part because of the mountain air...or perhaps because of a touch of nerves. An evening drink and meal with Dipi and his family helped to calm the nerves.

Saturday 20th Jan - Nanyuki to Old Moses Hut

Nanyuki - 1,986m
Sirimon Gate - 2,700m
Old Moses Hut Campsite - 3,300m

Simon picked up at 9am and we trundled off in our zero suspension Toyota taxi which looked incapable of making it through the potholes dotting the main highway, let alone the track leading up to the Sirimon Gate of Mount Kenya National Park. "Pole Pole" (slowly, slowly) was to be our approach to tackling the mountain so why start with a fast comfortable taxi ride ?

The aim was to enter the park at about 11am on Saturday and leave the park before 11am on Wednesday - paying only four days of park fees (Jan 2007 = $70 each for the first three days and then $20 for each extra day). We signed in, hauled our 16kg packs onto our backs and entered the park right on time.

The 10km, 600m climb from Sirimon Gate up to the Old Moses Hut passes through the forest belt and is relatively gentle. It took us 3.5 hours with generous breaks and pauses when we thought we heard elephants on the path ahead of us. Don't mess with Mount Kenya's elephants - just admire the mess they leave on the path and be happy you didn't come face to face with one. Our only encouters were with baboons and bushbuck. Simon soon helped us become experts at identifying pooh and we were soon able to tick buffalo, elephant, baboon and mountain leopard off in our "I Spy Faeces" books !

Mountain forest gave way to giant heather and St Johns Wort as we climbed higher and, as Old Moses came into view, tussock grass and strange towering giant lobelia started to dominate the landscape.
The air felt fresh and thin as we pitched our tent and my head felt a little light as we looked around and saw we were the first to arrive at the camp.

We left the gear and headed about 200m up the hill toward "The Barrow" sitting admiring the view towards the Aberdares and letting our bodies get used to the altitude. We dropped back down to "sleeping level" and found that about 40 assorted tourists, guides, porters and cooks had arrived at the camp and joined Belgians, Canadians, Dutch and a whole host of others watching the sunset across the Central Highland plains. The temperature plummeted, we jumped into our thermals and zipped ourselves into our sleeping bag cacoons.

Sunday 21st Jan - Old Moses Hut Campsite to Liki North Campsite

Old Moses Hut Campsite - 3,300m
Liki North Campsite - 3,990m

Woken by a flurry of activity as the entire camp, with the exception of us, prepared to head out and up the direct path to Shipton Camp - a long 8 hour walk, climbing about 900m in one day. Our guide told us that some were stopping there for a day before attempting the summit (still not following the 300m a night guideline) but that some were heading straight up the very next morning, giving very little time to acclimatise. Simon looked a little concerned at the speed some of the other guides were pushing people up the mountain. We were grateful for his 20 years of experience and happy that he listened to our request to take an extra day going via Liki North.

My first time walking above 3,000m (I'd touched 3,000m briefly in the Italian Dolomites on some of the Via Ferrata routes) and my head was feeling light and my breathing fast. As we climbed higher up the barrow and over ridges towards the Liki Valley I started to struggle and was grateful for the regular and generous breaks we had allowed ourselves. Before dropping into the Liki Valley, we climbed above 4,000m and I started feeling a bit sick. As soon as we saw the tiny porters hut sat on the perfect glacial valley floor below us, the last hour seemed much easier - all downhill, across scree and bogs and through forests of the strangest looking plants.

Pitching the tent, I had my first serious head spin and nausea. After an hours rest and a slow stroll higher up the valley, during which we found very fresh leopard footprints, I felt a little better. Pasta and soup was already starting to lack its initial appeal but we knew the night would be very cold (one of the coldest valleys on the mountain) and we had to get hot food into us and into sleeping bags as quickly as possible. I slept badly, head throbbing and imagining the sound of leopards wandering around our tent.

Monday 22nd Jan - Liki North Campsite to Shipton Camp

Liki North Campsite - 3,990m
Shipton Camp - 4,200m

Woke up very early and very cold. There was ice on the inside of our tent as the condensation from our breath had frozen. Couldn't feel my big toes despite the two pairs of socks and the bottle of hot water tucked inside my sleeping bag.

Getting packed up and moving was hard work as my head was still pounding and still a little light. Simon had pointed out our route last night and I wasn't looking forward to starting off with a 40 minute climb up and out of the valley.

I crunched and panted my way up the frozen slope, brushing aside the feathers of ice crystals that were sprouting from every north facing patch of earth - I'd never seen frost like it.

At the top of the ridge my head felt ready to explode and we took a long break. The headache eased, the breathing slowed and we began our drop down in to the Mackinder Valley - the long glacial valley leading up to Shipton's Cave and Shipton Camp. Seemed criminal to drop down and lose altitude that had been hard earned but the climb up the valley was gentle and relatively easy.

Simon told us to expect to meet groups coming down the valley who had summited that morning and close to Shipton's Caves a large straggling group came into view. "They are very late" was Simon's comment as he went and greeted his friends. We carried on walking saying hi to everyone as we passed. Everyone looked ashen - a hard climb we thought. We said hi to some of the group we had seen at Old Moses on Saturday night but they stared straight ahead, looking exhausted and devastated.

Simon caught us up. "There has been an accident. A girl. She has slipped coming down from the top. She is finished". Finished ? Did he mean dead ? "Yes, she has slipped on the snow field, slid down the field, turned and hit a rock. She is still up there". Katherine and I stopped and looked at each other. Who was missing from the group we saw coming down ? Was it that girl we had seen in the internet cafe and at Old Moses. We were both suddenly overcome with a flash of hesitation and asked Simon how often this happened. "Not very" was his answer as he started to reel off a list of fatalities on the mountain.

We got to Shipton Camp and set up the tent. My head still spinning and pounding, I started to drag rocks around to use instead of pegs in the unforgiving ground. We noticed about 15 porters all staring up the mountain and after about an hour could make out a group of about 10 people at the top of the scree slope, carrying a stretcher. They were bringing her down. As the group got closer, the other porters headed up the mountain to meet them and soon, there it was, a wrapped body strapped to a stretcher being walked through the campsite. The climbers who had been chatting and looking at their route maps fell silent and watched. Katherine and I watched in silence as the porters quietly and with dignity continued their carrying relay out of the camp and down the mountain. The air was charged and the reality and enormity of what we were about to do settled around us.

We headed up the scree to try and prepare ourselves for the morning but we were both deeply affected by what we had seen and talked about whether we felt OK to continue. I was still having problems with balance and concentration and the snow fields Simon had pointed out looked steep and open ended - leading only to steep and rocky drops.

We set the alarms for 2am and tried to sleep.

Tuesday 23rd Jan - Shipton Camp to Point Lenana to Old Moses

Shipton Camp - 4,200m
Point Lenana - 4,890m
Old Moses Hut Campsite - 3,300m

I tossed and turned on the hard ground and in the cold air all night. My sleep was broken and I kept asking myself if I was ready to do this. Was my head OK ? Was my balance OK ? Did we have the right equipment ?

At 2am, the alarms went off and Simon appeared with boiling water. Others around us were preparing for the 3am start and everyone was tired and mute.

At 3am, we set off in our 7 layers of clothing - the first group to leave the camp. Our head torches adding to the dim light of Simon's hand held torch as we headed back up to where we had acclimatised the evening before. Soon, behind us, a snake of tiny white lights weaved and traversed its way up the scree behind us. We were climbing too fast for my liking and I asked Simon to stop.

The rest of the climb becomes a bit of a blur. My headspin became worst and my legs became heavy as we blindly followed our guide up invisible ridges with invisible drops either side (maybe THAT's why they take us up at night). We hit the snow line and, in the 4am crisp, felt our way up rough and unyielding cut steps. I had flashbacks to the Dolomites where I had an ice axe to do this kind of thing. "Where will I go if I lose my footing ? How can I stop myself sliding with just a walking pole ?" I suddenly REALLY wanted an ice axe as we traversed steep and solid ice-frozen scree and headed diagonally across more frozen snow fields.

"This is where the accident happened" Simon announced. In the range of my head torch I could see what looked like a pair of perfect parallel ski tracks dropping from the line of rough cut steps and down the increasingly steep snow field, dropping out of view and out of range of my beam. Shit, shit, shit I thought as I clambered practically on my knees, constantly asking our guide to slow down. Katherine was insistant - "there is no way we are coming down this route. NO way". I agreed in my head but all I could do was babble. My head was now spinning like crazy and I had to stop every 5 steps to keep my balance.

We were now only about 50m from the summit and I wasn't sure I could make it. Katherine now tells me that I was having a conversation with someone as she pushed and Simon pulled me up the final rock step onto the summit ridge. I crawled the last 20 metres along the frozen ridge to join the others who had got there before us and screamed from the marker rock.

Katherine caught up with me and I broke down, the icy wind freezing the tears to my cheeks. "That is the scariest and most exhausting thing I've ever done" I blubbed as the horizon started to burn with the appraching dawn. We looked south and could see Kilimanjaro as clear as anything. "The greatest distance it's possible to see between 2 points on the earth's surface" someone told us. I imagined people on the summit of Kili looking towards us and asking themselves the same questions.

As the sun rose and people froze, I became more lucid and we talked about the route back down. There was no way we were going back the way we had come without ice axes. The alternative - 2 hours longer but dropping down the south (summer and snowless) side of the mountain and around the summit circuit via Austrian Hut and Simba Tarn.

If you are climbing Lenana from the north, SERIOUSLY consider coming down via Austrian Hut unless you are fully equipped for descending on ice and snow (ice axe as a minimum) and are experienced and confident in doing so. If your guide tells you that you have to go that way because of time constraints and you are not happy, insist on descending the other way - you see more of the mountain and it is FAR safer

The descent via Austrian Hut was wonderful. Running down soft scree fields and seeing more of the mountain than we would have if we had come down the north face of Lenana.

We were back at Shipton by 9am and packed up and "ready" for the walk back down to Old Moses by 10.30. A VERY long and very tiring day but with every metre we dropped, my head became clearer and clearer.

I couldn't help but think about the Belgian group. Had their guide insisted that they came down that way ? Had they had time to acclimatise ? Would a simple ice axe have saved a life ?

We were back at Old Moses by 4pm, exhausted and barely able to talk. I did my best impression of a bear with a very sore head and was asleep by 8pm.

Wednesday 24th Jan - Old Moses Camp to Nanyuki

Old Moses Hut Campsite - 3,300m
Nanyuki - 1,986m

We had to be away from Old Moses by 8am to be sure of getting to the gate before 11am (and so avoiding an extra day of park fees). We were up, tired, cold and aching and ready to go by 8.15.

Simon set a blistering pace and the tussock grass turned to giant heather. We blasted on as heather turned to forest (Oh look ...very fresh elephant pooh) and soon we could see the gate. It was 9.45 and our knees screamed from the rapid descent. We could have gone far more slowly and avoided injuring already tired joints.

We sat on the grass by the gate looking back up at the summits and overhearing groups about to start their treks talk about their planned rate of climbing: "We're going up Sirimon and down Chogoria in 4 days - we'll be back in Nairobi on Saturday" once couple explained. Our guide wandered over to theirs and told him how foolosh he was being. "That's a seven day route" he told us. The look on his face said it all and he appealed to us to tell people we met to be very careful about employing guides at the bus station.

I'll add Simon's contact details here shortly but he was a very safe pair of hands. If you are considering climbing Mount Kenya, it is NOT a simple walk, it is serious and technically difficult high altitude trekking involving climbing on frozen snow and ice - make sure you are well informed about conditions and inform yourself about what equipment you really need - do NOT listen to assurances from inexperienced guides. By the way - the view from Lenana is amazing and it is worth striving for.

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Photos

Head Spinning
Andy at the summit of Point Lenana after losing it on the last 50m of climbing. Mount Kenya National Park, Nanyuki, Kenya

3990m and Rising
An increasingly hairy Andy at Liki North campsite (3,990m) after climbing 600m from Old Moses. Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya.

LIki North Hut
The porters' Hut at Liki North Campsite. The inside walls are stained black with kerosene stove smoke and the walls and floors are full of holes. Liki Valley is one of the coldest on the mountain. Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya

No Time For Pom-Poms
Andy with Giant Lobelias about to flower. Liki Valley, Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya.

We're Going There ??
The view of the summits from the scree just above Shipton Camp. The plan - climb up from 4200m to the 4900m Point Lenana and then down 1600m to Old Moses. .. in a day. Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya.

The Final Ridge
The final ridge leading up to the summit of Point Lenana. I crawled this part on my hands and knees. Mount Kenya National Park, Nanyuki, Kenya

Summit
Andy and Katherine on Point Lenana Mount Kenya National Park, Nanyuki, Kenya

Sunrise on Batian
The sun, risings over the Indian Ocean, strikes the east face of Batian Peak on Mount Kenya. The Lewis Glacier mirrors the peak. From Point Lenana, Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya

Comments

[Jo Toye]

SCARY
Really enjoyed reading your truthful account - my daughter is as I type en route to Moses Camp with a group raising money for peaksfoundation.org - it's their fifth year of organisng such expeditions - it's actually called 3Peaks3Weeks - Mt Kenya, Mt Meru and Kilimanjaro in yes, 3 Weeks. (with the odd rest day inbetween). I have been living with this plan for about 18 months and had just about reconciled myself to her 'adventure' - glad I didn't read your blog before she went! She is deeply committed to raising money for and standards in, Africa and would not anyway have been deterred by anything I said - I only hope and pray she has the sense to stop if she feels anything like unsafe. Well done you for your achievement.

[ayan]

am i doing the right thing?
im going to mt.kenya in 4 days and im not fit but it is an opportunity of a lifetime because a friend is paying for me. i love nature so much but i have been so busy that i didnt get enough time to work out and be fit for this trip. ive read so many facts about mt.kenya and it has made me so scared that im considering to back out. so my question is, can an unfit person make it? pliz i need your honest opinion. btw i love your blog and wish id get to enjoy it like you guys. looking forward to your reply